Stakeholders

The World Bank Spring Meetings have just come to a close with much emphasis placed on the fragile states. Sessions at the meetings focused on a range of relevant topics including “Financing for Peace” and “Supporting Private Enterprise in Conflict Affected Situations.” The challenge that the Bank faces in the fragile states is considerable, with donor expectations high for the institution post IDA 18 replenishment.

The World Bank’s Country Survey Program has been surveying key influencers, in nearly all of its client countries systematically, since 2012, in order to assess and track their views over time. These respondents come from a range of stakeholder groups including government, media, private sector, civil society and academia. The views of respondents from government (i.e., the offices of presidents/prime ministers/ministers/parliamentarians, employees of ministries, including PMUs, and other governmental bodies) are the focus of this blog (and how their views compare to those outside of government), because this group is one that Bank Group interacts with the most in ‘client’ mode. In a sense, the Country Surveys are really ‘client satisfaction’ surveys when it comes to the thousands of government respondents who participate.

How do these government ‘clients’ think the Bank Group is faring in fragile and conflict states? How do they perceive our engagement on the ground? How can the Bank do better? Where is the perceived Bank Group niche, according to those who own the projects and programs that the Bank supports?

This is the third in our series of posts on evidence and decision-making; also posted on Heather’s blog. Here are Part 1 and Part 2
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In our last post, we wrote about factors – evidence and otherwise – influencing decision-making about development programmes. To do so, we have considered the premise of an agency deciding whether to continue or scale a given programme after piloting it and including an accompanying evaluation commissioned explicitly to inform that decision. This is a potential ‘ideal case’ of evidence-informed decision-making. Yet, the role of evidence in informing decisions is often unclear in practice.

What is clear is that transparent parameters for making decisions about how to allocate resources following a pilot may improve the legitimacy of those decisions. We have started, and continue in this post, to explore whether decision-making deliberations can be shaped ex ante so that, regardless of the outcome, stakeholders feel it was arrived at fairly. Such pre-commitment to the process of deliberation could carve out a specific role for evidence in decision-making. Clarifying the role of evidence would inform what types of questions decision-makers need answered and with what kinds of data, as we discussed here.

Since the Unique Identification Authority of India embarked on its unique identification project (UIDAI) in 2010, an estimated 200 million people have voluntarily enrolled. As discussed in a previous blog, the UIDAI aims to administer some 1.2 billion unique identification numbers by the end of this decade. The 12-digit online number, also referred to as Aadhaar (“foundation” in Hindi), is issued upon completion of demographic and biometric information by the enrollees. The number will give millions of Indian residents, previously excluded from the formal economy, the opportunity to access a range of benefits and services, such as banking, mobile, education, and healthcare. The UIDAI specifically aims to extend social and financial services to the poor, remove corrupt practices plaguing existing welfare databases, eliminate duplicate and fake identities, and hold government officials accountable.

So, what’s governance anyway? No, don’t ask me for a definition. I can, however, tell you how we frame it. People, Spaces, Deliberation has been around for about four years now, and we hope we have made our modest contribution to the discussion of governance, especially in a development context.

Since Mongolia shifted to a multi-party political system and market economy in the early 1990s, it has become a young and vibrant democracy. Debates among politicians, policymakers, civil society organizations, political and social commentators, and other stakeholders are now an integral part of Mongolian society. These happen through local newspapers and on the TV channels, at citizens’ hall meetings, as well as during cultural events, particularly in rural areas as nomadic herders gather for such event and authorities take that opportunity to communicate with them.

However, these debates may not always be particularly effective in getting to a consensus. Indeed, the heritage of the socialist system can still often be felt: public authorities, particularly at the local level, see communication as a way to disseminate and diffuse information through a traditional media approach. There is much to do to transform communication from a one-way dissemination tool to an instrument for two-way engagement.

The best part about working in a country office is the wide array of stakeholders one gets to work with. Development is never a solitary, insular process; indeed, it combines the expertise and inputs of a variety of people from diverse backgrounds: the government, civil society, the private sector, multilateral and bilateral financing institutions – the list is long! So you can imagine my excitement when my colleague, Tahira Syed, called me a few days ago to ask me to participate in a series of consultations with government and civil society representatives from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Tahira is the TTL for a Multi-Donor Trust Fund-financed project which will focus on providing sustainable livelihood opportunities and improvement in local-level infrastructure for FATA residents.

As the project is moving forward in the design and preparation phase, it was an opportune time to hold consultations with the two most important stakeholders of the project: local government and community organizations and representatives. Both groups have very different mandates and roles to play in the development of their areas, but hearing their perspective is crucial and informs the overall outcome of the project.

The third of the ten key issues about development communication is a crucial one and it asserts that there is a significant difference between development communication and other types of communication. What is the difference and why is important? Let us start by defining communication’s most renowned function; i.e.

Communication is not just about communicating, at least not in the development context. My personal experiences, where I applied communication in a number of projects in different areas, such as agriculture, environment, rural development, etc., confirm what is cited also in relevant studies. Many of the failures in the development context can be attributed to two major factors: the lack of or insufficient involvement of stakeholders from the beginning of the initiative and the lack of or insufficient use of communication in the project activities.

When I was asked to be one the blogger for the Development Marketplace I accepted without being too sure what was expected from me. I was told I should write something about communication, since this is not only my professional field, but something I am passionate about, I decided to start with two blogs about two key challenges that I have been facing and dealing with in the last few years of my professional life.

Almost everywhere, political leaders don't work with the strange animal known as 'the Public'. They work with 'key stakeholders' when they have to. And they prefer to decide a policy then 'consult' key stakeholders. Then they get on with the business of governing. There are at least three reasons for this.